"Narrow and Filthy Alleys of the City"?: The Residential Settlement Patterns of Black Southern Migrants to the North

Abstract

Considerable effort has been devoted to understanding the social, economic, and cultural forces thatproduced the Great Migration and to descibing the success ofsouthern African American migrants upon their arrival in the North. In contrast, relatively little research has examined the settlementpatterns of southern migrants. This article uses the 1970 Neighborhood Characteristics Public Use Microdata Sample to determine whether migrants were more likely than northern-born blacks to reside in neighborhoods that (1) were more highly segregated, (2) had morefamilies living in poverty, and (3) were characterized by higher levels offamily instability. The results reveal that, on average, recent migrantsfrom the South resided in the best neighborhoods, thatpast migrants were located in the worst neighborhoods, and that northern-born blacksfell between the two migrant groups. Recent migrants also received the greatest locational returns to human capital characteristics such as education and employment.